A Limited Color Palette Part I

Why use a limited palette when there is conceivably every color of paint under the sun made by a plethora of art companies at our disposal?  While artists will no doubt debate over the brand of products, I adopted my painting teacher's limited palette and have been thrilled with the success.  What I found were limitless possibilities in color mixing, but more importantly, in incorporating a limited palette I learned how color is created.  In this age where color is readily mixed by computers or selected from computer palettes of thousands and thousands of colors this might seem like insignificant brain-training.  I don't believe this color creating knowledge to be obsolete or useless and offer to you, the reader,in the next few posts, some of benefits of learning from a limited palette.

With just several hand picked colors of pure pigment one can paint any color under the sun.  When computers were first making their debut, folks were excited by the possibility of sixty-four thousand colors.  My immediate thought was that the human mind can manufacture and infinite number of color combinations!  Sixty-four thousand is actually a small number when compared to infinite.  I'm not slamming the use of computers.  To the contrary, I use them for art endeavors on a daily basis.  But I do not have to depend on computers to create color.  I learned that with a limited palette of paint, an easel, a canvas, a mixing tray and daylight.  It was an intellectual exercise that took quite a bit of time - years!  But mixing color, like many art based endeavors, teaches the mind to problem solve - and that ability pays dividends in many areas of life.  This is a big reason I believe the reduction of art programs in the schools - visual art, creative writing, drama, and music - to name a few - is terribly short-sighted!  Who would not benefit from intellectual exercises in problem solving?  The human gift of creativity is perhaps more multi-sided and useful in all areas of life than the decision- makers of these programs give credit.

Vibrant Color Part IV

Shadows are interesting.  Before the Impressionists came along with their love of painting outdoors, the studio painters tended to paint shadows as darker shades of the prevailing local color.  With observation we can see that there is not only color in light but color in shadows.  Unless something is completely dark there is some color going on.  In creating the color for shadows we can accentuate what we already know to be there.  So instead of thinking grayed browns and blacks, think dark green, blue, purple, perhaps even red - using them side by side in the same intensity (the same on the black and white scale).  A great way to develop the skill of matching intensity is to photograph a finished colored painting with black and white film.  Red, for example, is a very dark color, but because it is also bright, it fools us into thinking it is actually lighter.  Children love to experiment with mixing color.  It is just as fun as an adult.  Enjoy!

Vibrant Color Part III

We learn the color wheel as children.  The most basic version of the wheel has the primary colors of red, yellow and blue and the secondary colors of orange, green and purple.  We look at that wheel to see how secondary colors are mixed from the primary and to see the complimentary (opposite) colors. 

To learn to mix color effectively we break down any color we see into these six colors.  In this way we understand the composition of each color and how to use it in our artwork.  For example, instead of saying "brown" we observe that the most dominant color in brown is orange and to make brown we would mix blue in with the orange.  So instead of saying "brown" we say orange-blue (or as Jim Faber used to say "orangish-blueish."  It tells us how to mix the color.  With much experimentation we learn how to compose color.  With time we begin to recognize exactly how much of what color needs to be used.

It is absolutely necessary to have pure pigments or our color mixing will end up with muddy or grayed colors.   While these colors are useful we won't understand how they were made and how to mix the exact color we are trying to attain.  In the "Introduction to Acrylics" post I explain the paint colors I use from Liquitex.  No, I was not asked to do a commercial for this brand.  I have just had such great success with it, that I prefer to use it because it's colors are so pure.  I'm sure there are many other fine brands.

Complimentary colors (the opposite on the color wheel) cause the juxtaposition of the two to create a real visual spark.  Opposite colors sing when seen next to each other.  This is something Vincent Van Gogh understood in a magnificent way.  I have been told to see his later paintings in person in a museum setting almost hurts the eyes because the colors are so vibrant.  "It pops" as we artists would say. 

Speaking of Van Gogh, to grow in one's knowledge of color, pick out a favorite artist's work and really study what you see.  Remember to really look at the color - not just what you "think you see." 

Vibrant Color Part II

A key in learning to paint color vibrantly is observation.  When we are young we learn that the sun is yellow, tree trunks are brown, the leaves are green and the sky is blue.  After we learn this elementary approach to color we tend to stop looking.  We really don't observe in large part how light affects everything.  The local color of that tree trunk may be brown (we will term colors differently in the future, but for now I'll say "brown"), but take a closer look.  Look at the side the light hits.  Now I'm going to say one of those "Jimisms."  Don't say what you think you see, but what you really see."  In other words, really observe what you see and throw out your default that says that tree trunk is brown.  Look.  Chances are where that sunlight hits the trunk there is sections that are yellowish, orangish...maybe even some pink.  I know, you are thinking I'm crazy by now, but really look.  Stare at it.  And check out those shadows.  Not just dark brown.  You may see cool shades of blue, purple, green - yes maybe muted blue, purple or green but nonetheless colors that would be best described by those terms! 

It takes awhile and concerted effort in observing to start to see the vibrancy of colors all around.  And yes, at first I thought my teacher was a little loony at first until it clicked one day and I too, started to really observe color in objects.  Many an artist has described this as "scales falling off the eyes."  All of a sudden what was not seen is in clear view.

Observing - it is a key to much as we learn to paint pictures of the world around us with realism and vibrancy. 

And that reference to 'scales falling off the eyes," - that is a direct quote from the Apostle Paul's life - when he was blinded by the light as he encountered the risen Christ, and then was healed and given his eye sight back.  Powerful stuff.

Vibrant Color part I

I grew up with the term "artist" attached.  My parents were the most encouraging parents in their support of my artistic endeavors that I could imagine.  And so I am very blessed.  My mother did (and still does at age 87) paint portraits and my father was an extraordinary craftsman.  I attended good schools with strong art programs and drew everyday of my life for over thirty years.  My husband and I owned and operated a successful stained glass studio for seven years in Southern California.

All that to say that when I had been painting seriously after a few years I came upon some teaching on color that made me realize that I had missed a significant part of an art education.  I thought at first - what's to know about color?  Blue and yellow make green.  I understood contrast and could put together a strong black and white composition.  Color, so I thought, was just kind of like colorizing a black and white photo, in effect.  Shadows were just a darker version of the local color.  Right?  Not right.

One evening in the small Northern California town to which we had moved to escape the pressured city life, we walked into a small business that was holding an opening for a local artist.  His work was stunning.  It was more impressionistic than mine.  Even though I admired it I was very comfortable with my tighter style of realism.  It wasn't that aspect that caught my eye.  In fact, I wasn't sure what caught my eye.  I just knew that he possessed, artistically, something I didn't have.  There was a maturity and vibrance about his work that was a bit mysterious to me.  I wanted that "something" in his work that I did not have, and so I met the artist and asked for lessons.  He enthusiastically invited me to a new class he was starting at the community college.  There began color lessons under the tutelage of Jim Faber.

It didn't take me long to hear what that "something" was that my work was missing.  It was a knowledge and application of color.  Thinking that the color wheel was kind of like learning one's abc's, I could not have been more mistaken.

Jim started by explaining to us that the world was filled with color and light.  And that light has an effect on everything.  Even in shadow there is marvelous color.  In addition he explained that in light there is all colors (think of a prism) and so that what we know to be true about color (even if we don't totally see it) we can apply to our paintings.  Therefore nothing on our canvas should be a section of one plain color.  In everything there is all kinds of colors jumping around.  That was a revelation.  And that was the beginning.